Annual leave and holiday pay
In Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and another v Agnew, the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal's decision that police officers and civilian police support staff in Northern Ireland can recover holiday underpayments that stretch back as far as 1998.
In Harpur Trust v Brazel, the Supreme Court held that holiday pay for part-year workers should not be calculated on a pro rata basis, but by applying the approach set out in s.224 of the Employment Rights Act.
In Smith v Pimlico Plumbers Ltd, the Court of Appeal held that a worker who was wrongly classified as self-employed and refused paid holiday by his employer is entitled to compensation for all the unpaid leave he took throughout his employment.
In TSN v Hyvinvointialan Liitto Ry; AKT v Satamaoperaattorit Ry, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) held that, in the absence of domestic legislation or collective agreements to the contrary, workers on sick leave are not entitled to carry over any paid annual leave over and above the EU minimum of four weeks.
In The Harpur Trust v Brazel, the Court of Appeal held that holiday pay for "part-year workers" should not be calculated on a pro rata basis, but by applying the approach set out in s.224 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and calculating average weekly remuneration over the previous 12 weeks.
In Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and another v Agnew, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal refused to limit workers' historic claims for the unlawful exclusion of overtime from holiday pay calculations.
In East of England Ambulance NHS Trust v Flowers and others, the Court of Appeal held that ambulance workers are contractually entitled to have voluntary overtime included in the calculation of their holiday pay and, under the Working Time Directive (2003/88/EC), to have it included where it is sufficiently regular and settled.
In Kreuziger v Land Berlin and Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften eV v Shimizu, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) held that a worker who does not apply for leave does not automatically lose the right to a payment in lieu on termination of employment.
In Stadt Wuppertal v Bauer; Volker Willmeroth als Inhaber der TWI Technische Wartung und Instandsetzung Volker Willmeroth eK v Broßonn, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) held that a German law that prevents a payment in lieu of a deceased worker's outstanding annual leave from forming part of their estate is incompatible with EU law.
In The Sash Window Workshop Ltd and another v King [2018] IRLR 142 ECJ, the ECJ held that the right to paid annual leave of a "worker" who was treated as a self-employed, commission-only salesman could accumulate over an unlimited period, and that the worker was entitled to claim the accrued holiday pay on termination.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to annual leave and holiday pay.